No doubt. No question.
Absolute certainty.
He needed to run. Run now.
He couldn't move, held in place by the awareness of his approaching death.
Where the hell was Huirre? Huirre had the tasiks. Huirre should be here, beside him. He shouldn't be standing alone, that's why he had fukking crew!
"Torin!"
Ryder. Still closer to the hatch than the gunnery sergeant but quickly closing the distance between them. To Cho's surprise, the gunnery sergeant jerked to a reluctant stop. Craig hadn't expected Torin to stop. He'd hoped. If he'd had time, he'd have prayed, but he hadn't expected it.
When she turned, he wished he was closer. Wished he was far enough away he couldn't see the look on her face.
"Don't." No need for him to elaborate. They both knew what he meant.
Torin spat a mouthful of blood out onto the deck. "He deserves…"
"Not arguing." Almost to her now, Craig cut her off. "But what he deserves and what you should do about it… Torin, it's not who you are. It's not what you are."
Her expression was pure Doc. Her mouth twisted into something that in no way resembled a smile. "I've killed before."
"I know." Here and now, there were three bodies on the deck. Although he'd killed one of them and wasn't going to think too hard about that until they'd come out the other side of a Susumi fold and were safely away. "But there's a difference between killing and…" Fuk! He sketched meanings in the air. "… killing." Torin knew what Craig meant. Probably better than he did. The differences between killing officers and murdering officers had come with Humans into space. Had come with the Krai and with the di'Taykan. Professionals recognized the difference.
Cho was the latter.
He'd used Doc, used the broken pieces of the man as a weapon.
Cho had taken the chance Craig had offered, turned, ran for the Heart. Torin could order Ressk to secure the air lock. Hell, she could probably use the rage still sizzling under her skin and catch the son of a bitch before he reached the air lock. Make him pay for… for everything. For Sirin and Jan. For Sergeant Rogelio Page. For the destruction of the Promise.
For Craig. For taking him. For everything that had happened to him.
For Doc, when it came down to it. *Gunny!* Werst sounded like he'd been trying to get her attention for a while.*Ressk has control, but it won't last. What do you want him to do?*
That depended on what she was going to do, didn't it?
"… you give us…" Mashona looked at Ressk. Ressk looked at Werst. Werst half shrugged, making the usual Krai cock-up of the movement. "… grounding. Direction."
But Torin had heard, Something to believe in, in the pause.
All those years at war and she'd never hated the enemy. She'd done what she had to in order to complete the mission and get her people out alive. What she had to. Not what she wanted to. Not even what she thought she needed to.
This wasn't what she was. If she let rage make her into a weapon, however justified the rage, where would it stop? And, once over the line, how much easier the second time? And the time after that?
How many times could she cross the line and still be able to cross back?
How many times had Doc?
Craig had been freed, but the armory was still in enemy hands.
She had a mission to complete and people to get out alive.
When she let the rage go, her knees nearly buckled.
"Turn off the gravity." Another mouthful of blood spat away from the implant. "Open the doors." *Gunny, you're not suited up. Neither of you.*
Craig had reached her side. Torin sagged against him, breathing shallowly. "Give us three minutes…"
"Five," Craig corrected. And she remembered that Ressk had patched both implants into the ship's signal.
"Five," she agreed. "If we can't get suited up in five minutes, we deserve to blow out with the armory."
Cho reached the air lock.
Torin's good hand closed into a fist around a handful of Craig's overalls. On their way to the lockers, she paused, reached down, and closed Doc's eyes.
In her experience, the dead did not look at peace. They looked dead.
TWELVE
"Out of my way!"Cho pushed past Huirre and slammed both fists down against the air lock's inner hatch. Once. Twice. "Get this thing open! Now!"
"I'm trying, Captain!" He could hear the whine of excuses in Dysun's voice. He should never have brought her and her thytrins on board. "But with it slaved to the outer hatch…"
"I don't fukking care! Get. It. Open!" He couldn't hear anything from the ore docks. Not fighting. Not her boots against the deck coming closer.
"You okay, Captain?"
He turned on Huirre, pleased to see his nose ridges snap shut as he backed up. "Where the fuk were you?" he snarled.
"She killed Doc! I wasn't fukking facing her unarmed. I was going to bring you the tasik Doc dropped, but it wasn't working. I tried to get it working." Huirre glanced over his shoulder and pounded on the hatch, but Cho wasn't falling for that we're in this shit together crap.
"Liar! Coward!"
"You ran!" Huirre's lips drew back off his teeth. He glanced back toward the outer hatch. "Is she coming after you? The gunnery sergeant?"
"Shut up!" She wanted him dead. She was hurt, but that wouldn't matter. People like her, people like Doc, they just kept coming. "Dysun! Every second I'm in here, you lose ten percent of your share!"
The inner hatch opened.
Yeah, that lit a fire under her ass. "Close everything and get to your board. You, too!" Cho turned far enough to see Huirre slinking out of the air lock. "And later, when this is over…" He layered enough menace into the pause to keep Huirre's nose ridges closed, then he pivoted on one foot and ran for the control room. "Move, damn it!"
Behind him, he heard Dysun ask about Doc.
"Dead," Huirre told her.
Dead. Big Bill thought he was winning, but he was wrong. There was an oldEarth saying, the bigger they were, the harder they fell and every species Humans had run into since hauling their asses into space had a variation on it. These sorts of sayings became universal for a reason, and Cho was going to fukking prove it.
Big Bill was going down! "Marines, we are leaving." Arm pressed against the broken rib, Torin struggled to match Craig's stride. He was making good time using the heel of his left foot, but pain of impact was easier to ignore than a potentially punctured lung.
Not a competition, Torin reminded herself silently. It didn't matter if Craig ended up carrying her the rest of the way to the lockers as long as they both got there while breathing remained an option. "Werst, take the Star out; rendezvous by the ore docks!" *She's locked down, Gunny!*
Of course she was. "Ressk, you said if you took her out of Vrijheid's operating system, the station would kick her clear?" *Yeah, but when we detach from the station, proximity protocols will have the docking computer try and take control whether it has a record of us or not.*
And that would give Big Bill control of the Star. "Can you lock it out?" *Not without closing down communications.*
"What does… never mind." Torin raised a hand Ressk couldn't see. Explanations she wouldn't understand were explanations she didn't need to hear. "All right, shut down the comm. Then the gravity. Open the loading doors. Blow the Star free, then get in as close to the ore dock as you can. Mashona, get the grapples on the armory…" Mashona had never used a grapple gun, but she could blow the eye out of the Queen of Spades with anything else, so Torin had no concerns about her being able to fake it. "… and shoot one our way. We'll use it to get back to the lock."
"Roger, Gunny.* *Gunny,* Ressk broke in. "The Heart is armed.*
"Mashona, you're cleared to return fire." *With the cutting tool, Gunny?*